Part Two
Being Dad in the
Growth Years
Chapter
Eight
Being
a Dad that Teaches About Money
I
heard a prominent motivational speaker once say that he never once got an
allowance. He was expected to take out
the trash, clean his room, and do other chores as a part of his family
duty. He said that he was never “paid”
to simply “be a part of the family and its responsibilities.” His money would have to be earned through
other work and investment. My father
incorporated a similar philosophy with us as kids. We were never paid for things that didn’t
deserve pay. Mom didn’t get paid for
doing the dishes. Neither did we.
“Dave’s
Cassettes”
As
soon as I could handle the pressure and learn from the experience, Dad began to
help me dream about starting my own business.
From the start he made it clear through our discussions that this wasn’t
about making money, although that would be a great benefit, but it was more
about learning responsibility when it came to money. With my parent’s speaking schedule, my
proximity and connection to other speakers in town, and the large church we
attended, I decided (with great encouragement from Dad) to start a tape
duplication business at just 13 years of age.
I
borrowed the money from my parents to buy the first duplication machine, which
was over $1,000. The first month I
started the payment plan to pay them back and well within the year I was on my
own. I would duplicate large sets of
speaking tapes with a 40-50% markup and once I owned a few duplicating machines
outright, and had a large stock of tapes, I started to turn a nifty yearly
profit, socking much of it away in the bank.
By the time I was 16 I retired from my “Dave’s Cassettes” business (a
pretty campy name I’ll now admit) and invested the money in a small rental
house. The money from that income helped
me pay my percentage of college costs, of which I was expected to pay an
increasing, pre-planned amount each consecutive year I went.
Teaching
Our Kids to Fish
What
a gift it was to learn so many financial principles from those years in a
miniature business that rose and fell on my own money and hard work! The parable is true, and my father proved it
by “teaching me to fish” rather than just giving me a weekly allowance “fish”
as the old parable teaches us. And when
you add up several years of potential allowance it likely would offset the
money it took my Dad to get me started.
With this small measure of financial independence I wasn’t able to “bum”
off of my parents when something took money.
I learned early that spending money to make money is the best way to
save. I also learned that money doesn’t
make itself, and that I needed to be responsible with the small measure of
money I did have. During these growth
years my father made it a priority to make a man out of me when it came to
money. When I look at the financial
shape my friends are often in I don’t think as much about the financial
decisions I make now, I more often than not think about the principles I
learned when I was thirteen. We must
understand that being Dad is teaching our kids to be responsible with
money.
Tips
on Teaching Financial Principles to Our Kids:
It
is more important for our kids to figure out the principles involved when
dealing with money than to actually make any of it. In fact, not making a boatload of money may
teach them the stark reality that money does not come easily—or learning to
regroup and invest their money in something more wise the next time. (Of course, in this situation we fathers may
have to pony up a second “start-up” fund.)
Lots
of kids have to “go get a job.” The
difference comes when a kid has to use his or her creativity, contacts,
opportunities and resources to make more money than just hard work will get
them. If you want your kids to work in a
fast food check-out career forever, then an entry level “McJob”
is the way to go. If not, help them see
the value of investing for future reward over just working for temporary funds.
My
father once wrote a chapter in a book called “How to Get Rich Slow.” In this wry title you can see a bit of his financial
philosophy. He always told me that the
key to financial independence was not in how much you can make, but in how
little you can spend. My Dutch wife from
Many
younger people today likely remember the cartoon character Scrooge McDuck’s favorite motto, said in his hokey Scottish accent:
“Work smarter, not harder.” This was also
the theme of my father’s constant financial advice. Every word of wisdom spoke to doing things
with more efficiency rather than simply doing things the easy but mindless
way. My brother’s foray in to the same
early teen business start-up world exemplifies this. Instead of simply watering every tree in his
large tree-farm, they put together a system of irrigation with automated
controls. This way he only needed to
flip a switch and everything would get watered.
After adding several timed computers to the system he could practically
forget the whole business for several weeks at a time. When he sold the business in his later teens
(with all the trees still in the ground) he made a $10,000 profit! We need to teach our kids not just to “work
hard for their money,” as the song goes, but to work smart for it as well. I’d call an 17
year-old with a cool 10 grand pretty smart, wouldn’t you? I might even call him up to ask for some
money myself.
Let’s
think about the practical ways we can make this true for us:
“Being
Dad is training our kids to be responsible with money.”
What
things can I do this year to instruct my kids about money?
Chapter Nine
Being a Dad that Uses Positive Reinforcement
When
I was growing up, it seemed no 80s sitcom was complete without the recurring
theme of a bad report card grade. The TV
kids would go to great lengths to hide, alter, or defend their grades to their
parents. For most kids this was a
true-to-life accurate picture of report card day. Some of my friends even anticipated a
spanking for their grades at the end of each term and would head home in
tears. Things were quite different in our
home.
Every
single report card day from the time I was in sixth grade, our family would go
out for pizza. My brother (in first
grade when it started) and I would have our grades in tow and, as my father
would say invariably during the drive, “tonight we are celebrating all your
hard work for this term, and I’m proud of you whatever your grades are.” Our grades were positively reinforced every
single pizza party. We would make our
parents proud with great grades, and we knew that the party at the pizza place
would be all the better with better grades, so we tried our best each year.
Positive
Rewards
It
is difficult to get kids to do what we want.
Children act so childish all the time don’t they! Sometimes we wish they would just grow
up. The difficulty with kids is the same
difficulty with adults: getting them to do what we want them to
do because they want to do it.
Anyone with a position of authority can make people do things. Any boss or father can use punishment to make
a point, and sometimes that is necessary for both. But the higher road and more utilized choice
by successful Dads and bosses alike is the path of positive rewards for
preferable behavior.
We
all know how to do it, but more often than not we use it as the backup
plan. We need to realize that people are
not unlike dogs. We will go to amazing
lengths for a treat! This is not using
empty promises and desperate pleadings once a kid acts up in public. A kid in that situation probably needs
negative reinforcement in a decisive manner.
But on a daily and constant basis, kids should be behaving well because they
want to do themselves and their parents proud, not simply because they are
living in fear of the consequences, which can, and will, result in them simply
“going behind your back” to get away with things without punishment.
The
Secret Reinforcement Weapon
The
largest positive reinforcement for any child is often the pride of his or her
father. Being Dad is when your kid
makes you proud by trying to make you proud. Being proud of our kids is our secret
weapon. To know that Dad would be proud
of my bother and I regardless of our grades didn’t cheapen his pride of us when
we did well, it bolstered it. We longed
to make him even more proud. And you
know you’re doing your job when your kids want your pride more than they want
the pizza.
Let’s
consider how this quote applies to us:
“Being
Dad is when your kid makes you proud by trying to make you proud.”
Do
your kids make you proud? Do they know
it?
Chapter Ten
Being a Dad that Intentionally Leaves a Legacy
I
knew it would happen years before the trip came. I saved up money to buy souvenirs. I studied maps. I dreamed with Dad about what we would do
when we got there. But the significance
of my trip to
Dad
told me from an early age that he would take me to
A
Legacy Trip
It
is hard for me to think of that trip now without thinking of another father—one
who heard about our trip and did similar ones of his own. Many people heard of the trip we took, and
the identical one my brother took the year of his 13th
birthday. One particular father who is a
good friend of mine took big-event trips with his two children as a
result. He called them “Legacy Trips”
and even mentioned them in his heavy speaking schedule. He was the popular-epitome of a good
father. In most ways, I believe he still
is. But I can’t get out of mind what
those “Legacy Trips” mean now. This
friend of mine, who had a rapidly growing speaking and teaching career, had an
improper relationship with a woman half-his age and, more importantly, left the
mother of his two kids. I often think of
the “legacy trip” those two remarkable kids have now been on now. It has taught me that regardless of the great
The
legacy of a man is not left in a day. In
every case, a legacy is not calculated until you are dead and your life can be
measured in total sum. Having a “few
good years” as a father is not the goal of any Dad. Being Dad is leaving an authentic,
lasting, and intentional legacy.
We want to leave a legacy that not only our kids will treasure, but that
our kids’ kids will contemplate and carry on themselves. With this kind of lasting legacy our family
tree can expand not just in quantity but also in quality. This will occur because of the strong legacy
of roots that we are securing firmly every day of our lives. We can do this. We will finish well. We can leave a legacy that outlives our own
lives. But we can only do it if our
private legacy behind the curtain and beyond the limelight is more potent than
the one others like to talk about.
Let’s
consider each part of this goal for our kids:
“Being
Dad is leaving an authentic, lasting, and intentional legacy.”
Is
my legacy authentic? Is it lasting? Is it intentional?
©2004 David Drury
Back to David’s Writer’s Attic